Written by Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing at Google
Successful mobile search depends on a respect for variations in user context. To create useful, meaningful mobile campaigns, marketers must keep four contexts in mind.
- Local intent: Uniquely bridging the consumer and the physical world, mobile search helps consumers find nearby places, opening hours and directions.
- Task-oriented activity: Compared to desktop or tablet, mobile searches are less about browsing and more about achieving key tasks, such as locating a store or checking prices.
- Deep, direct connections: People consume video and social content on mobiles throughout the day, and when they download an app they’re effectively carrying a brand in their pockets. Mobile’s rich, personal experiences facilitate engagement.
- Time-poor users: Mobile searchers are often in transit, impatient and close to the end of their buying journey, providing marketers an ideal opportunity to give consumers what they need when they need it.
Making things easier with mobile ad extensions
To effectively cater to these contexts, mobile search ads need to offer a user experience that’s quick, intuitive and seamless – mobile ad extensions can help.
- Location extensions show an address, phone number, map marker with ad text and a link with directions to a business. On average, these boost click-through rates by 10%.
- Call extensions help consumers contact a business by showing a phone number and clickable call button with the ad. They typically increase click-through rates by 6 to 8%.
- App extensions encourage downloads by showing an app icon and a link to the app on Google Play and iTunes. Businesses can deep-link to a specific page inside the app right from the ad.
How to improve mobile performance of ads in three key steps
- Offer a mobile-optimised site using one of three approaches. (1) Build a separate site specifically for mobile. (2) Use responsive web design so all devices view the same site but pages adapt to suit the layout of each device. (3) Employ dynamic serving to detect the user’s device and display custom pages accordingly
- Aim to calculate the impact of cross-device conversions where users start their journeys on one device and complete on another. AdWords uses aggregated data from users signed into Google to provide an anonymous approximation of cross-device conversions.
- By measuring everything that mobile ads contribute to (including in-store or on phone purchases and non-transactional conversions like app downloads), build an attribution model that highlights the full value of mobile.
Understanding user contexts, using ad extensions and grasping mobile’s true nature and value are critical steps to developing a multi-screen strategy that successfully engages your customers. For more insights visit Think with Google.
Written by:
Matt Brocklehurst
Product Marketing,
MMA UK Blog 